SFOG Last saturday

This is my review from Theme Park Review. Sorry it's so long. If you don't want to read the whole thing, here's the summary: I rode every coaster except for Deja' Vu (which was closed) and the Cnayon Blaster (because it's so small). I also rode Deer Park Plunge and Freefall.


Yesterday morning, April 23, I went to my school at 4:30 in the morning for my fist trip to SFOG. We arrived at the park just after it opened. I was in a small group of people, and our plan was to ride every (good) roller coaster at the park. The forecast showed rain and wind, but it was wrong. We had a great, but slightly cool, day at the park.

At first I could not decide what to go on first. I wondered if I could catch a ride on Deja Vu, so that was where I headed first. I saw a line of people at the queue, and a train was being pulled backwards up the lift! I jumped right in line, excited about the fact that I might actually get to ride it. The train got up to the second lift and stopped about half way up. I noticed nobody was on the ride. Then the train was pulled slowly back down to the bottom of the lift, and it just stayed there. The ride was closed for the rest of the day, so my friends and I headed over to GASM. The line was surprisngly short, so I hopped in line and took a back seat ride. It had great airtime over every hill, and I thought it was really cool how the train was pulled up to the second hill for another big drop.

After that, I looked at the line for Superman Ultimate Flight. The sign in front of the ride showed a wait of 2 1/2 hours, and I was not willing to wait that long. I headed back to the front of the park to Gotham City, where I met up with about 10 people from my school.

We all decided to ride Mindbender next, so we got in the "20 minute" line. We soon realized that the wait would be more like and hour and a half, the longest wait of the day. The ride was only running one train, and the other train was sitting on the ground under the first drop. When we finally got to the station, most of the people in the group were hungry. A few people actually got out of line after waiting an hour, just to get some food! I took a seat near the middle of the train. The loops had some really great, intense g's. I could not even keep my hands up. The "third loop" didn't seem to me like it should be considered a real inversion, but it did have a cool headchopper about halfway down that really made me duck. Everyone but me and one other person went to get some food.

We waited for about half an hour to get on Batman the Ride, getting a great view of Mindbender from the queue. I didn't really like the sewer/junkyard theme. The tunnels were pretty cool, but random piles of junk were used as cheap scenery. The station was very ominous, with its huge Batman logo up on the wall. The vertical loops, which seem to make you hang forward in your seat, were the best parts of the ride. The tight helix near the end pulled some really intense g's. The headbanging was a little bit extreme, too. The ride was not my favorite B&M, but it definately had some great moments.

I had a headache after getting off, so I decided to go on a relaxing ride, the Deer Park Plunge. I expected a short, one drop ride, but it actually had a few hidden turns and a smaller drop. The ride seemed really old, and it thought it was really ghetto how that the boat just bounced off the sides of the trough around the turns. The drop got me a little wet, and my onride photo was really crazy-looking. I looked like I had a really fake smile.

Since we were already wet, we decided to go over to Splashwater Falls. The ride op was looking at all of the riders like they were crazy, because it was a really cold day to be going on water rides. I was hesitant about getting so wet, because I was already starting to dry off from the last ride. Of course, the ride broke down right when we got in line.

We decided it wasn't really worth the wait to get so drenched on a cold day, so we tried to find the Dahlonega Mine Train. We saw the ride, but we didn't find the entrance. Since we took a wrong turn and ended up back at the front of the park, we decided to take a ride on the Georgia Scorcher. The girl in front of me was crying and begging her mom not to make her ride it, and she screamed throughout the whole ride, even up the lift. The Scorcher was really fun and smooth. It was better than Chang, and it didn't make my feet hurt nearly as much. I was going to take a second ride, but when I heard the girly scream "Mommy I want to go again!!!!!!"

I just decided to let my ears have a break from her and ride the Cyclone.

I could tell it was going to be rough, because of the look of the trains. Orange reastraints usually mean a rough ride, so I sat up at the front of the Cyclone. The ride op gave her repetetive "Welcome to the Gee-oh-gee-a Psych-alone" speech so many times in the short short wait that I almost had it memorized. I loved the ride's steep, curved drops. Unfortunatley, I missed seeing my onride photo, because I stopped at the exit to take a picture.

After that ride, we went to try to find the Dahlonega Mine Train again. We passed by the kiddy coaster, deciding that it was not worth even a 5 minute wait, and we followed the path next to long the mine train to find the entrance. We sat in the very back, not expecting much out of the ride. It was very unique and different compared to any other ride I've ever been on. The ride was almost like a little kiddy coaster with random bursts of speed and great backseat airtime on the final underground drop.

I was getting really thirsty, so I stopped by a small cocession stand to get a 3:00 soda, ouch, that was expensive!

We decided to go on Freefall. It was my first time riding a 1st generation freefall, so I didn't know what to expect. The only other vertical drop ride I had ridden before that was Wicked Twister, which didn't really feel like falling to me, so I thought this ride would be about the same. It was really weird how the cars just backed up in a line, each one waiting for their turn to go up to the top. Every time we moved back, I thought, "okay, this is it. I'm going up this time", but then I would hear a car behind me being pulled up. After about 4 or 5 times, I finally felt my car click onto the lift. It zoomed right up to the top, providing a great view. I was moved slowly forward, and suddenly, I was dropped down the seemingly-endless drop. My head was pounding, and it felt more like 2 negative g's than a freefall. Once it was over, I had decided that that was definately the greatest and most intense drop of the day. I didn't know whether or not to count it on my coaster count, since many people don't consider it to be a real coaster.

We went back toward the back of the park to go to the two coasters we had still not ridden: Ninja and SUF. I was really scared to go on Ninja, since I had heard so many horror stories about it. I wanted to see for myself what had apparently made this great-looking ride into a Vekoma Smashterpiece. I really liked the location of te ride over the lake and the cool oriental music played in the station. As I was going up the lift hill, I prepared for the worst. I pushed my head back hard against the headrest so I wouldn't be headbanged to death. The ride had some really great headchoppers, and it really didn't turn out to be as bad as I expected. It was actually a pretty cool ride.

I wanted to save the best for last, which was SUF, my very first flyer. I had 2 1/2 more hours left in the park, and the sign said there was a 2 hour wait, so I thought I would barely have enough time to ride it before leaving. The line moved really quickly, and I was actually up at the station within an hour. I was nervous about going on the ride, since I had heard that the pretzel loop would be really intense. I thought that the pullout at the bottom right before the onride photo camera would provide some really uncomfortable negative g's, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I ecxpected.

When I was near the top of the steps, the ride broke down.

The ride op made an announcement that the ride would be closed temporarily and they didn't know when it would open back up. We thought we would end up not having enough time to ride it, but we were determined to get just one ride on it before the end of the day. I pulled out a deck of cards, and we played a quick game on the steps up to the staion. In about five minutes, I heard the ride op say the ride was back open. I wasn't sure what was wrong, but I think that a person had gotten stuck in the restraints. I finally got on the ride, and it was definaltely the best ride in the park. My first thought was, "what's with the rubber OTSR's?" I thought that "flying" would be an uncomfortable position, but it actually ended up being much more comfortable than I had expeced. The downward-facing drop was not very intense, but it was really cool to go down head-first. The bottom of the pretzel loop was the best part of the ride.

After getting off, I was done riding all of the coasters on my checklist, and I had about an hour and a half to shop and eat. I was about to go on Monster Plantation, but would much rather get something to eat than go on a boat ride full of animatronics. We went to the Panda Express for some really good, but expensive, Chinese food. I went around to the various gift shops, wanting to buy a SUF shirt, but I couldn't find one that looked good. I ended up with a SUF postcard as my only souvenir, but I got several pictures.

Going back to the bus, I got the see the whole park lit up. Mindbender's track was really cool with lights going all the way along the track. We left the park at around 9:00 p.m., and I didn't get home until aroung 2:00. It was a very fun, but exhausting trip.
This trip has brought my coaster count up to 26. My count is still really small .

go here for pics:
http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1495&sid=c7d8ddb528eb6ec64e46b0edd7b03feb

nice review and nice pictures.
I've got to be honest, I only read about 5% of that haha. I just wanted to see if Deja Vu was running.

When i went 3 weeks ago, mindbender and cyclone were closed. batman does not have head banging, and i thought that every log flume bumped along the sides???? every one i've been on at least...and next time, if acrophobia is open, ride on it, it's a much more intense (negative g) ride than freefall...sounds like you had a good time, i'm going back in a couple of weeks and another thing, use lo-q!